ABSTRACT
Most of this book’s comparisons of Jonson and Shakespeare focus on their similarities in the light of Aristotle’s theory; the conclusion considers their differences. These differences arise uniquely out of the uses each dramatist makes of pain in writing his “comedy of affliction.” For both dramatists, pain, particularly in the form of indignation, is necessary to comedy. Yet where Jonson typically stresses the need for and propriety of indignation, Shakespeare focuses on its potential dangers and excesses. Jonson’s moments of catharsis involve an abrupt realization about error and indignation at a play’s conclusion, a realization meant to occur equally in his audience as in his characters. In contrast, Shakespeare is more interested to dramatize in his characters the results that follow from catharsis. These different tendencies are also related to the location of each dramatist’s hoaxes and the way they induce what Aristotle calls ekplexis or disorientation: Jonson focuses on producing disorientation, while Shakespeare is interested in the subsequent reorientation. In these ways, both dramatists reciprocate the questions that recent accounts of Aristotelian theory ask of them, allowing us to better understand the possibilities and limits of that theory.
